


you're my forever girl

by twistedsky



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:00:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2507027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedsky/pseuds/twistedsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slight spoilers for the midseason promo. Amy starts to move on just as Karma starts to wonder what she really feels for her best friend. Pining ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're my forever girl

**Author's Note:**

> Slight Amy/Reagan and Liam/Karma. 
> 
> All mistakes are my own. I took liberties with canon and spoilers.

Here is the simple version of things: Karma Ashcroft is in love with Liam Booker.

Here’s a more accurate version of things: Karma is in love with Liam, maybe, but there’s something between her and Amy too.

She’s not afraid of being a lesbian, but the truth is that she isn’t a lesbian. She can’t change that fact about herself. She can’t look at Liam and feel what she feels and think ‘oh hey, totally a lesbian.’

She could be bi, she thinks, but she’s not really sure what that means.

More importantly, she can’t be bi unless she’s had feelings for a girl, and she doesn’t.

Maybe. Probably.

It’s all very hard to tell. 

It’s easier to think about what she does know. She does love Liam, she does _want_ Liam, and the fact that she _maybe_ feels something for Amy is irrelevant, because she _knows_ she feels something for Liam.

And she can’t do that to Amy. She can’t tell Amy there’s a chance when she doesn’t know if there is. What she does know is that she already has feelings for someone else, and even if it takes a while before they actually _try_ to be a couple, she doesn’t try to turn those feelings off in the meantime.

They are real.

But now—there’s something uncomfortable about being around Amy now, even though they’ve been best friends for so long there shouldn’t be anything in their way. It's not Amy, of course. It's just that things are different now.

That’s what pretending to be lesbians(and then having your fake lesbian girlfriend realize she’s in love with you) will get you.

Maybe this is what she deserves.

~~

The first time that she kisses Amy, she’s so hyped up with adrenaline and stress, it’s just _bam_. It hits her, and in that moment all she knows is that it felt nice, and that it _feels_ nice to be important, to be seen by the student body.

If there’s anything else going on, then it’s all tied into that—into her desires and needs, and not her feelings for Amy.

She doesn’t even _consider_ that she might have romantic feelings for her.

Amy is her best friend, her constant, her _forever girl._

It’s just a kiss, and there are more.

They’re pleasant, yes, but she’s too busy looking at Liam Booker to see the way that Amy starts to look at _her_.

~~

She can be selfish.

She’s not proud of it, and she’s not happy about the kind of person it makes her sometimes, but she can be careless and inconsiderate.

She wants to be a good person, but sometimes she’s just . . . not.

She _wants_ things, and sometimes she forgets to think about how her desires and ambition affect the people around her.

She’s not used to have to worrying about it at all, because her only friends were Irma the lunch lady and Amy.

Things used to be easy that way—it wasn’t like she could hurt Irma, and so there was just Amy.

She misses that sometimes. That certainty that everything would work out, and that she’d never have to doubt the state of her personal universe.

But now things are all up in the air. She can’t even guarantee how Amy will react in any given situation, and it’s like she doesn’t know her at all.

~~

When Amy kisses her on the night of the failed threesome, Karma _feels_ something.

It’s all wrapped up in confused emotions and stress and _Liam_ , but there’s something there.

But then Amy and Liam kiss, and she feels a deep rush of jealousy, and she’s not sure who she’s more upset with, and that’s just—Amy is her best friend, and she loves Liam, and they shouldn’t be kissing, this is _wrong._

It scares her shitless, which is why she runs away.

Later, when she tells Amy that she just doesn’t feel that way about her on the night of Amy’s mother’s wedding, it breaks her heart a little too.

She’s too young, too vibrant for the weightiness of this darkness that consumes her.

There’s guilt, and regret, and—it’s too much, she thinks.

It’s easier to focus on what she _can_ handle.

~~

Later, when she’s back with Liam, she wonders how she’s supposed to feel.

She’s never been in a real relationship before. She’s never felt this way.

She’s still worried that she’ll lose Amy, even though Amy swears that won’t happen.

Karma knows that things don’t always turn out the way that you expect though. Her life recently has been living, vibrant proof of that.

When Liam reveals that he slept with someone else, she knows that _this_ is the other shoe she’d been waiting to drop.

She publicly scorns him.

Then, _Amy_ reveals that she’s the one who slept with him, and her entire world falls out from underneath her all over again.

~~

She loves them both in different, but confusing ways.

Her heart is broken though, and she’s not sure which betrayal hurts more, though technically Liam didn’t cheat on her.

Amy did though, she thinks, because best friends don’t break up like that. Their fight, their discussion, their _whatever you want to call it_ did not mean that they were no longer best friends.

And best friends have a code, they don’t sleep with the person that the other one is in love with. Ever.

When she thinks about Liam and Amy together—and she can’t _not_ think about it—she feels such pain and rage and _jealousy_.

~~

Karma has never been attracted to another girl before, at least not one other than Amy, who she isn’t even sure she’s attracted to like that.

All of her feelings are all tied up in knots, and how is she supposed to discern the difference? How does _Amy_ know with such clarity that she loves her like _that_?

Karma’s almost angry at her for having that level of certainty.

Amy and Liam have betrayed her, she reminds herself, and she doesn’t want either of them.

They try to apologize, and they tell her that they were drunk, that it was an accident, but it doesn’t change how she _feels_.

Friendship and love cannot survive this level of cataclysmic destruction, she thinks.

~~

Time passes, and she misses them both.

Her life is emptier now, and it’s not like she has many other friends, and so she drifts back to them both.

Maybe, she tells them, she could forgive them—their faces express such hope that it hurts her to see it.

Maybe she shouldn’t even really have to forgive them, she thinks, though it hurts, and it aches inside of her.

Maybe she broke both their hearts, and there was too much alcohol, and mistakes just happen.

Maybe they should take responsibility for their own actions, she thinks bitterly. And they are, she knows, they’re trying, they aren’t trying to blame each other, they’re being _honest_.

Maybe it’s too late.

~~

Amy swears she’s moving on. She’s dating a girl named Reagan, and she’s—she’s hot, Karma will admit.

Shane tells her that lesbians move fast, and Karma’s not really sure it works that way, but she also knows that it’s really easy for a relationship to heat up quickly and out of the blue.

Karma wonders if she’s jealous.

She wonders if this feeling deep in her gut is jealousy, if she honestly doesn’t want Amy to love anyone more than her. And if so, does she just want her best friend to herself, or does she want something more that she’s just too afraid to admit?

Karma has a lot of questions, and very few answers.

~~

She has a dream.

She’s going down on Amy, and Karma’s never gone down on a girl, so her imagination just takes charge, apparently, and Amy says “Woah.”

But first—Karma kisses Amy, and then slides herself down and plays with Amy lovingly. There’s the velvety feeling of skin against skin, and then Karma just _sinks_ into Amy, and Amy cries out, her hips bucking against Karma’s face.

Karma lifts up her head and says, “I know,” softly, and then kisses Amy.

Those are _their_ words—their soft amazement and acceptance, their knowledge of something special between them.

Dazed and gloriously happy, Karma has one singular thought: Amy is _amazing._

Karma wakes up sweaty and frustrated.

It’s not the last sex dream she has.

~~

She starts to daydream about Amy regularly. She watches Amy kiss Reagan and she feels _angry_.

She’s mostly angry at herself, she thinks, because she screwed this up.

She thinks about Liam, and about how every day when she sees him she just feels furious, and she thinks it might just be jealousy.

She wonders if she still loves him.

She looks at Amy, who she’s gradually becoming friends with again in a careful, stilted way, and she wonders if she loves her more.

~~

They’re hanging out at Amy’s house watching some movie. They’re close, but not too close, because that’s the state of their friendship now.

Karma can barely get Amy to give her the time of day because she’s so _busy_. Busy with school, busy with _Reagan._

Karma knows that if she asked, then Amy would spend more time with her, but every time she almost does, she pulls back.

It’s selfish, and not fair.

She can’t do that to Amy, not after everything they’ve been through.

She wonders if she really forgives Amy for sleeping with Liam.

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know many things at all anymore.

But she does know that she has to be friends with Amy, but she can’t push too hard.

She needs her.

It’s a universal law of the universe or something—Karma Ashcroft needs Amy Raudenfeld.

Karma tries not to think about these kinds of things when she’s with Amy, but it’s _hard_.

Now, for instance, she wants to create accidents. She’s afraid of them, but she craves them.

She wants to hold Amy’s hand, or to grab it accidentally. She wants to kiss her, or accidentally miss her cheek when she goes to kiss it.

Karma has been known to be a plotter, and she knows this, but she tries to hold back.

It’s not fair, because she doesn’t even want to do anything about it _really_ , and that’s not okay. It’s not okay for Amy, and it’s not okay for her.

It’s not fair, she thinks, but so little is.

~~

Amy is falling in love with someone else, and that’s not okay.

Amy doesn’t talk about Reagan very often(at least not to Karma, probably to avoid making her feel awkward or weird).

Karma wants her to be happy, but part of her screams  _not like this._

~~

“Amy seems happy,” Liam says conversationally.

Karma turns away from her locker and bites the inside of her lip to stop herself from scowling at him.

“She is,” Karma says with a shrug, like she doesn’t care. “She’s dating, she’s over me, she’s totally moved on.”

Liam lifts an eyebrow, like there’s something suspect about what she’s just said, but there’s _not_.

He can keep his passive aggressive body tics to himself, she thinks meanly, then she sighs and smiles slightly.

 “Are you happy?” he asks suddenly.

Caught off balance, her face falls, and she lets herself really think about it.

“I don’t know,” she says finally. “Are you?”

Liam tilts his head to the side and gives her a rueful glance. “Of course not. But unlike you, I can’t do anything about my unhappiness.”

“I didn’t say I was unhappy—“

“But you didn’t say that you were happy either,” Liam points out, finishing her sentence, but not in the way she wants him to, because he’s right.

She’s bitter about that.

“My point was,” Liam starts to say, but then he makes a weird, contorted face as if he’s arguing with himself mentally, “My point is that you should figure it out. And if there _is_ something you can do to be actually happy—because actually happy is better than _maybe_ happy, then you might want to consider doing it.”

Karma frowns, and the bell rings, so Liam just waves awkwardly and wanders off.

He might have a point.

~~

“I am in love with Amy,” Karma says in front of her mirror.

She’s testing it on her tongue, on her face, on her—well, everything.

It feels strange the first time, because it can’t possibly be true. She loves her, yes, but in love? What does that _mean_?

Amy makes her _happy_ , she thinks, at least she used to.

Liam made her happy, she thinks. Maybe. Kind of. They didn’t have much time to really be happy, and everything was excitement and forbidden love, and she doesn’t know how to separate all of that out and figure out what it means.

She closes her eyes and thinks.

 _I love Liam_.

_I love Liam more than I love Amy._

No, she thinks, that’s not quite right.

 _I love Amy._ Her heart feels so heavy in her chest, it’s not supposed to feel like this, is it?

She thinks about Amy, thinks about spending time with her, and kissing her—and thinks about how easy it was to pretend, how easy it was to _be_ with her.

She wonders what this weight in her chest is now when she thinks about Amy, wonders why everything is so much more intense now.

Maybe because it’s all wrong, she thinks. Maybe it’s all fucked up because it’s all, well, fucked up.

She clears her mind as well as she can, and then asks herself one question.

_What do I want?_

The answer comes to her immediately, but within seconds she’s as overwhelmed with everything as before. Questions, worries, stress.

But she has an answer, and she’s right back where she started.

Karma opens her eyes and frowns at herself, then breathes in deeply and tries to unclench her facial muscles—she’s too young for frown lines.

She’s too young for frown lines, she thinks again, and something sparks in her brain. Maybe there’s a way to answer those questions that she still has.

She’s too young to worry about what things mean. No one else in high school is concerned about the future beyond high school(and maybe college if they’re overachievers, or if they have some sort of massive life plan).

She needs to focus on the here and now, she thinks.

How does she feel _now?_

Karma pushes back her shoulders and puts on her bravest smile. “I don’t know how I feel—“ the urge to worry about that rushes back, and she pushes it away with her iron will.

“I don’t know how I feel,” she says again, “But I feel something, and I want to find out if maybe we can feel something together.”

Karma frowns at that, because that’s a terrible line. Clunky, maybe a little repetitive.

Not quite right.

~~

Amy is not as receptive to her as Karma had hoped she’d be.

Karma should have known better. She always does this. She forgets to think about what’s going on with other people, and it messes her up every time.

She doesn’t do it on purpose ,and she needs to do better, and she really _tries_.

She doesn’t try hard enough, apparently.

“Amy,” she says, “I need to talk to you about something.”

They’re hanging out in Amy’s bedroom—with the door open, of course, because Amy’s mother is gradually tilting in the direction of acceptance, but she’s taken to making it so that no one is allowed in Amy’s room with the door closed except Amy and Lauren.

Karma thinks she might want to reconsider the Lauren part, because even though the two have grown closer, there’s still always the chance that one of them could be murdering the other behind closed doors.

It’s a legitimate concern.

Now, Karma means to tell her the truth. She means to do a lot of things, really, but then she looks at Amy’s face.

She’s smiling, happily, staring at her phone.

“You look happy,” she says instead. Karma can't remember the last time Amy looked even remotely that happy.

Amy looks up at her. “Hmm? Yeah. I really am. Reagan and I are facebook official.” Karma's pretty sure Amy doesn't even really care about being facebook official, but she seems to really like Reagan, which is the important thing, Karma guesses.

Karma blinks dramatically in surprise. “Wow,” she says, and she feels her voice crack slightly. She smiles brightly and clears her throat. She’s a performer, she can totally pretend that didn’t hurt to hear.

“Are you okay?” Amy’s smile fades slightly. “You needed to talk to me about something, right? What’s going on?”

“I’m fine,” Karma assures her. “Absolutely great.”

Amy nods slightly, slowly as if she doesn’t quite believe her. “Is it about Liam? Are you guys dating again?”

“No,” Karma shakes her head. “I just—do you want to go see that new horror movie that comes out next week? I thought that could be fun.”

“Uhh, sure.” Amy narrows her eyes. “Are you absolutely sure that you’re okay?”

Karma is practically bouncing on her feet, so she can understand why Amy’s concerned. She wills herself to stop. “Just excited. For the movie, and for you and Reagan. That’s just really great.”

Amy smiles again, and Karma wants to stab something. “I think I’m finally ready to move on—“ Karma turns away and misses the sad look Amy briefly throws her way.

By the time she turns back, Amy’s smile is in full force.

“From me,” Karma finishes finally. “You’re ready to move on from me.”

Amy nods. “I really want us to keep rebuilding our friendship, and I just worry that we can’t really do it until I stop being in love with you. And I need to stop wanting you to love me back.”

“Yeah,” Karma says. “I get that. I uhh—“ she gestures toward the door. “I’ve got to go.”

“Oh. I thought we were hanging out—oh, okay. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” Amy looks a little hurt, but Karma is sure she'll be fine. Karma will call her later and tell her she simply hadn't been feeling well or something. 

“Yeah, of course,” Karma says brightly. “Bye.”

Well, she thinks, that could have been worse.

~~

She doesn’t blame her.

This is just what happens when your timing is off, when feelings don’t come into being at the same time.

Karma resolves to move on.

She could pine, she supposes, but what’s the point in that? It’s painful, and time-consuming, and it won’t make a difference.

She’ll move on, and go back to the way things were when they were easy, when they made sense.

Back to the way things were, she thinks, when she wasn’t in love with her best friend.

Because that's the truth now, she knows.

That's the truth.

~~

Things do not go according to plan.

She pines.

It happens the very next day. She’s wistfully looking at Amy when she’s looking at something else, and it’s ridiculous.

She can move on, she thinks.

Look at her and Liam, after all.

Karma tries to summon rage, but it doesn’t work. She tries even for mild hurt, for anything but _this_.

This involves looking forward to every waking moment she’s around Amy. This involves the way her heart aches in her chest every moment of every day now.

She’s pathetic, she thinks.

~~

Reagan and Amy are sickeningly cute sometimes.

Karma watches them flirt on the couch while she sits on a chair.

Things are different now—it’s them and her, not Karma/Amy and others.

Reagan isn’t even that pretty, Karma thinks, but then she looks at the girl and feels guilty.

That’s not very nice of her.

She’s bitter and jealous, and it’s not a good feeling.

She’s stewing, and pouting, and it’s a terrible look on her.

She needs to _do_ something.

~~

She tries to sleep with Liam again, but Liam turns her away.

 _That_ tells her that she’s really an even bigger disaster than she thinks.

She needs to get it together.

She joins some environmentally-conscious school club, decides to spend more time studying, and dedicates herself to better things.

Karma Ashcroft is not going to be weepy and sad and continue to _pine_ constantly.

It’s time to move on.

~~

Reagan and Amy are sleeping together, and Karma knows that.

She’s okay with it, she swears.

It’s not like she talks about it. It’s not like Karma has to watch it—except behind her eyelids all the time when she’s trying _not_ to think about it

The sex dreams have not stopped.

~~

She goes on a date or two, though it’s hard to get pumped up for them. It’s hard to be excited when your heart is already in someone else’s hands.

It’s also hard to get a date when most people know you as the fake lesbian who craves attention so badly that she’ll do anything to get it.

Karma wonders if she’s really that girl.

She honestly can’t believe the choices she’s made to get what she wants, but that’s always been her, hasn’t it? She’s always done whatever’s necessary to make things happen.

She’s a doer; it’s simply in her nature to bend the world to her will.

It’s backfired terribly, she thinks.

She feels like her life is over, but that’s just so _dramatic._

And that’s what helped get her into this to begin with—her dramatic nature.

The thing is that she’s not even ashamed of that, because there’s nothing wrong with wanting things, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling things so _fully_ that it feels like she’s reached some sort of apocalyptic threshold.

She feels like she’s just moving so fast, like she’s a car and she’s never really thought about how dangerous the speed is, because she’s never been pulled over, and she’s just never _tried_ to stop, so she didn’t even realize she didn’t have brakes.

The problem is that she’s suffered a bit of a crash now, and she’s trying to get back on the road, but she’s not even sure what direction to go in, and she’s so afraid of crashing again that even if she _did_ know where to go, she’d probably be faster if she hopped on one foot to get there.

Karma has accepted all of these things about herself—or, at least, she wants to, because she wants to think that she’s evolved, that she’s an enlightened sort of person.

But maybe she’s not.

Maybe she’s just in denial.

~~

You can know your limits, Karma decides.

You can be who you are without fully subscribing to the utmost of every trait you possess.

This doesn’t help with her current situation, of course, but she hadn’t expected that it would.

She’s a teenager, and teenagers get fucking confused, it’s pretty much in the handbook. At least, it would be if there were one.

She’s learning from her mistakes as best as she can, and just because the world doesn’t decide that her self-growth should be automatically rewarded doesn’t mean that she should stop trying.

She can be a good Karma—the kind of Karma who taps into her deepest emotions, who doesn’t avoid her emotions because they scare her, who takes the kind of risks that she truly wants to take.

But, she thinks, sometimes you have to step back and let things take their course.

This is what she’s doing now, she swears.

She’s moving on.

~~

They’re baking for a massive snack party, and Karma is feeling pretty calm.

She and Amy are singing along to pop songs on the radio, and everything just seems bright and happy.

Karma thinks she can use some bright and happy, and so she just tries to enjoy it.

Too often now things are difficult, and it’s nice to tap back into this. Sometimes they can slip back perfectly into easy friendship and simple camaraderie. Sometimes, Karma forgets, and simply _enjoys_.

Now, for instance.

“Do you think musical artists get tired of hearing their own songs?” Karma asks conversationally, swirling around the brownie mix in her bowl. She frowns, and also wonders if salmonella is a real thing that actually happens to people, because this mix smells pretty great, and she’s not sure she can wait long enough to actually bake the damn thing.

“Hmm,” Amy tilts her head to the side, seriously considering Karma's question. Karma loves that about her. “I get tired of their songs, and I’m guessing that when they make them they probably have to listen to them a lot, so yeah. I’m guessing Katy Perry is like, ‘The only thing unconditional around here is my hatred for this song, get the hell out of here before I stab you through the eye with a fork.’”

Karma nods. “And Beyoncé is like, ‘I’ll roll this partition up with your head in the way so that it decapitates you if you don’t fucking shut up.’”

They both laugh, and Karma feels centered and balanced, like she’s completely at peace.

“Do you think salmonella poisoning is a real thing?” she asks suddenly.

Amy wanders over with her mixing bowl and frowns. “I think we’ve eaten enough raw cookie dough to disprove the existence of salmonella.”

“Maybe,” Karma frowns, stirring again. “Just because something has never happened before doesn’t mean it still couldn’t, or that it’s not real.”

Amy gives her a weird look, which Karma looks up to see. Karma winces.

Amy clears her throat and gets ready to talk, but she doesn’t, of course.

Karma has seen her do this before. Sometimes Amy just blurts things out, but sometimes she has to work her way up to the blurting.

Like now, her face is turning a little red, and she wipes at her forehead as if she’s sweating, like it’s really hot, which it isn’t. The oven’s heat is offset by the crisp breeze coming in from the open windows.

Amy’s just being Amy.

Karma smiles, her face softening. It’s cute.

She steels herself, trying for a more neutral expression. It’s probably important.

“I broke up with Reagan,” Amy says.

“Oh,” Karma says, the word just gasping from her lips, and she has no chance to stopping it. She’s too startled. “I thought you guys were happy.”

“We were, maybe,” Amy winces now. “It’s hard to tell sometimes, because she was really hot and funny, and _fun_. She made me forget about—“ Amy trails off.

“She made you forget about how you felt about me,” Karma finishes, and she feels a little empty.

“Karma, it’s not that simple,” Amy reaches out a hand to comfort Karma, patting her shoulder.

“I know,” Karma replies, looking back down at the mix. “I have to pour this in a pan.”

She definitely needs brownie now, and she finally understands why Amy wanted to do one of these get togethers. They haven’t had many lately, but a broken heart definitely calls for one, she supposes. “Wait, when you say you broke up with her, do you mean you broke up with her, or you guys just broke up?”

Amy hands her a greased pan and shrugs. “I just. I realized that even though I like her, it wasn’t really going to go much further, and that wasn’t really fair to her. It just—things weren’t changing, even with time. She made me happy, and maybe I was making her happy too, but I just don’t think it was enough.”

“Hmm,” Karma muses noncommittally.

“I just thought I’d let you know,” Amy says. “Because you’re my best friend.” There’s something about the way she says that that feels weird to Karma, like it’s almost a question, like there was a bit of an uptilt in her voice at the end of that sentence.

“Thank you for letting me know,” Karma responds. “Because you’re my best friend,” she finishes firmly.

Amy smiles slightly, and Karma reaches out and takes her hand, squeezing it.

It’s something she’s done a thousand times, though so infrequently recently.

It’s hard to remind herself not to, so she lets her choice stand, and holds her best friend’s hand for a moment.

Amy squeezes back, and Karma meets her eyes and smiles brightly. “You’re going to be okay,” Karma promises. “Break-ups suck, but I’ve got your back. I have a soundtrack prepared for this moment. I have movies, and thankfully we’ve got the snacks. Everything is going to be just fine.”

Karma doesn’t ask why Amy couldn’t fully move forward with Reagan.

Maybe she doesn’t want to know.

Maybe she already does.

~~

The next few weeks are nice. It’s almost like pre-fake relationship days, but Karma’s in love with Amy now.

“So are you guys actually dating now?” Lauren asks her one day while Amy’s in the bathroom. “Because if you are, you better not mess with her, because—“ Lauren looks around to make sure no one else is listening, and then dramatically whispers, “I’ll have to kill you.”

“We’re not dating,” Karma says with a shake of her head. “Amy’s still getting over Reagan.”

Lauren lifts a brow at that, and that eyebrow is _taunting_ Karma. “I see.”

“What do you see?” Karma plasters a smile on her face.

“You basically just said you’re not dating her _yet_ ,” Lauren points out. “My threat still stands.”

She walks away, and Amy walks in moments later with a confused look on her face, “What was Lauren doing in here?”

“Protecting your virtue, I guess,” Karma says, and Amy snorts, plopping down on the bed, shaking Karma a bit.

“I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t care much about my virtue, of which there’s nothing left to protect anyway.” Amy shrugs at that.

“She does care about you.” Lauren wouldn’t like her to say that, but if it comes down to her or Lauren, and someone is going down over their real feelings for Amy, then it most certainly won’t be Karma.

Amy laughs for a moment, then shakes her head and sighs. “Yeah, I know. In her own Lauren sort of way. And I care about her too.” Amy frowns. “In my own way, I guess.”

“Sometimes it just takes time to navigate relationships,” Karma points out. “Sometimes two people who previously hated each other can kind of become sisters.” Amy makes an ‘I just bit into a super sour lemon face’ at that, and Karma smiles and continues. “Sometimes we don’t always expect how we’re going to care about people. Sometimes—“

“Karma—“ Amy interrupts. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me again. I know how you feel.”

“But you don’t—“ Karma bites out, and then sighs. “You don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Amy says again. “I—“

“No,” Karma says, interrupting this time. She might as well say it now or forever hold her peace, she decides impulsively. “But I—I don’t know what to say. I—I’m in love with you—“ her voice cracks and the tears start streaming out.

Amy doesn’t say anything, and Karma is too busy looking at her hands to look at Amy's face and see her reaction.

“I know I don’t have any right to,” she says. “I know that I had my chance months ago when you told me that you loved me, and I know that so much has happened since—I know I dated Liam, and then you dated Reagan, and I know I told you that I didn’t feel that way, but I didn’t, or maybe I didn’t understand how I felt, I don’t know.”

Karma feels ridiculous and helpless now. She’s made a complete mess of this, and she hadn’t been intending to do it like this. Maybe not ever, she’d thought. Maybe she’d just wait it out and move on, and their friendship would continue to recover, and they’d be okay. That's not really an option now though, she berates herself.

Amy is so quiet, and if it weren’t for the fact that Karma hasn’t felt her weight leave the bed they’re sitting on, she’d be worried that she’d disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” Karma says. “I’ve messed everything up.”

She looks up at Amy, who simply looks stunned.

She’s just sitting there staring at Karma like she’s never seen her before, Karma thinks with a wince.

“I don’t—“ Amy starts to say, but then she shakes her head. “How—“ her voice cracks.

“I know you’ve moved on,” Karma assures her. “I don’t expect—I don’t expect anything more than I gave you. I just—I needed to tell you. I needed you to know.”

There’s a war on Amy’s face, and in her eyes.

“I tried so hard to move on,” Amy says, and she sounds like she’s in _pain_. 

“I’m so sorry,” Karma repeats. 

“I—“ Amy starts to cry, and Karma barely manages to hold things together.

She deserves this, she reminds herself.

“I was in love with you,” Amy says, and Karma closes her eyes and breathes deeply, nodding. Past tense, she deserves that. She waited too long. She didn’t take the time to figure things out before, because it was easier just to love Liam, and now her chance is gone.

“I know,” Karma says softly, and she feels so small.

Karma feels the bed move and Amy’s hands are suddenly cupping her face, and Karma’s eyes fly open.

Hope flutters at the bottom of her stomach for some reason, though she tries to stomp it down.

“I’m still in love with you,” Amy admits. “I didn’t want to be.”

Karma feels her heart soar and sink. She lifts her hands and places them over Amy’s. “I know,” she says again.

“I hated you for a while,” Amy says softly. “I didn’t want to, but I did. But then I realized I really hated myself, and I tried to move on, and I thought I did, but sometimes—sometimes it would only take a look, or a touch, and I’d be completely yours again.”

Karma doesn’t think she’s ever heard Amy wax poetically, so there’s something joyful in her heart because Amy's this way about _her_.

“I need you to say it again,” Amy says, nodding her head. “I need you to say it, and I need you to look in my eyes, because I need to believe it.”

“I love you,” Karma says without hesitation. “I’m in love with you. I want—I want to be more than friends. I want to—“ Amy leans forward and kisses her.

This kiss is different than the others they’ve shared, from the meaningful to the perfectly pretend.

Her heart is so full it feels like it's about to burst.

“Woah,” Karma says when they finally pull apart to catch their breath.

“I know,” Amy responds, and they both smile. “I’m in love with you.”

Karma thinks she could never get tired of hearing that.

~~

Months later, Homecoming comes around again.

“I don’t think it would be fair to nominate you guys again,” Shane says, and Karma’s always thought he’s an asshole, friend of Amy’s or not, so she just makes a face at him.

She doesn’t care about the crown this year.

“God forbid we actually win during a year when we’re dating,” Amy points out. “I don’t really care though.”

“I don’t either,” Karma says, with complete confidence.

Last year, she’d wanted things. She’d wanted popularity, and Liam Booker. And this year—this year she has Amy(for real), and she’s pretty sure half the school still hates her, even though some of them seem to have forgiven her since she and Amy made things official again, which she doesn't really understand.

She genuinely doesn’t care about school contests though—okay, maybe not this one, at least. Too many bad memories, she thinks.

She loves Amy, and she wants to be with her, and since she is, it's not like she has anything to prove.

She turns to Amy and leans against her slightly, enjoying that pure sensation of utter contentedness that washes over her just at that slight contact.

She has everything she needs already.

“We could probably win again, if we really wanted to,” Amy points out, and Karma rather thinks she’s right.

“I have everything I want already,” Karma says with a shrug. “Another crown won’t change that.”

Amy smiles, clearly thankful for her answer.

It’s true, technically, Karma thinks.

But later they’ll have even bigger crowns to win, and Karma intends to win those. Because Prom's a big deal, of course. And for the cute pictures—okay, and maybe for the glory too.

Amy reaches for Karma’s hand, and Karma thinks, well okay then.

Maybe because everyone else should know how much she loves Amy too.

Karma won’t let anyone—especially not Amy—forget _that_.

They might not last forever romantically, but they'll last forever as friends at the very least.

Amy is her forever girl, and Karma is hers.


End file.
